Question about "other GA comics

[profpike]

I download and read the "supers" because one of the things that I like about some of them is that the older ones, especially, have more than just supers-they usually have a gag strip or two, and some sort of other adventure piece not featuring supers. Was this policy followed with other genres? If I were a kid back then I think it would have been fun to have so many different types of comics all in one volume.

[Yoc]

It depended on the publisher but in general, yes, you'd almost always find humour or puzzle page filler in all genres.  By the time Crime became king a book was pretty much all crime but the early years were a lot more variety in books that later.

[CharlieRock]

I would think the ones with a specific genre, say all the stories in Detective Comics were featuring a detective of some sort, sold better.

[bchat]

I download and read the "supers" because one of the things that I like about some of them is that the older ones, especially, have more than just supers-they usually have a gag strip or two, and some sort of other adventure piece not featuring supers. Was this policy followed with other genres? If I were a kid back then I think it would have been fun to have so many different types of comics all in one volume.

My opinion regarding the variety found in the early comics from the 1930s & early-40s is that, as a form of entertainment, publishers were still trying to figure-out what worked for the format, while at the same time trying to fill-up 64 pages with features people (not just kids but anyone) wanted to read.  Once the industry hit the point where books contained specific genres, the publishers were no longer just filling-up pages, but were going after a specific target audience that liked to read crime, westerns or horror stories, so the variety of genres in any one book became more limited to stay within that range of stories the target audience might enjoy.

[Yoc]

That's a good point.  As time passed total pages in comics dwindled.  With less pages the need for variety also fell.

[darkmark (RIP)]

That, btw, was precisely why WORLD'S FINEST became a Superman / Batman teamup book.  With the page count lessened, it would have been harder to get individual stories of Superman, Batman, and a backup in there, but a Superman / Batman teamup in front and two shorts in the back worked fine.